Impact assessment of a department-wide science education initiative using students’ perceptions of teaching and learning experiences

Evaluating major post-secondary education improvement projects involves multiple perspectives, including students’ perceptions of their experiences. In the final year of a seven-year department-wide science education initiative, we asked students in 48 courses to rate the extent to which each of 39 teaching or learning strategies helped them learn in the course. Results were related to the type of improvement model used to enhance courses, class size and course year level. Overall, students perceived unimproved courses as least helpful. Small courses that were improved with support from science education specialists were perceived overall as more helpful than similar courses improved by expert teaching-focused faculty without support, while the opposite was found for medium courses. Overall perceptions about large courses were similar to perceptions of medium courses. Perceived helpfulness of individual strategies was more nuanced and context dependent, and there was no consistent preference for either traditional or newer evidence-based instructional practices. Feedback and homework strategies were most helpful in smaller courses and independently improved courses. Results indicate that students are perceptive to benefits that arise when improvements are made either by expert educators or by research-focused faculty who received dedicated support from science education specialists.     

Institutional goals and faculty attitudes toward collective negotiations

This article reports on research investigating the relationship between university faculty and administrators' perceptions of institutional goals and functions and faculty attitudes toward collective negotiations. Faculty and administrators of a large state university were sampled. Those sampled were divided into three groups: administrators, faculty with favorable attitudes toward collective negotiations, and faculty with unfavorable attitudes toward collective negotiations. The three test groups were compared on the basis of their perception of the importance the institution accorded goals and the emphasis given institutional functions. The findings indicated that faculty with favorable attitudes toward collective negotiations differed significantly from the other test groups in their perceptions of the importance the institution accorded goals and functions. The findings support March and Simon's theory of formal organization.     

A Framework for Creating a Climate of Transparency for Professional Performance Assessment: Fostering Student Investment in Gatekeeping

Students unfamiliar with their counseling program's professional performance assessment policies may consider such policies pejorative. Moreover, student beliefs about the primacy of ethical service to clients may be confounded when faculty members are reluctant or fail to formally address concerns about deficient professional performance of students. The authors propose a framework intended to promote openness and transparency in professional performance assessment and believe this framework is critical to students' accurate perceptions of the assessment process, their trust in faculty members, and their future investment in safeguarding public welfare and the ethical integrity of the counseling profession through gatekeeping.     

Web-Based Social Work Courses: Guidelines for Developing and Implementing an Online Environment

Nationwide, the percentage of faculty who are tenured (or in tenure-earning positions) is declining, with proportionate increases in the amount of instruction provided by adjunct and other part-time instructors, including doctoral students. These trends are mirrored within academic social work and have given rise to some concerns about the potentially adverse effects this could have on the quality of instruction provided to MSW and BSW students. A review of the social work literature, however, failed to locate any systematic investigations published on the topic of evaluating the quality of teaching provided by adjuncts or doctoral students. The authors undertook a comprehensive analysis of the course evaluations obtained from a large urban school of social work in the Southeast over a 3-year period, covering 294 courses (61% BSW, 39% MSW). Of these, 181 classes were taught by regular faculty, 63 classes were taught by community-based adjuncts, and 50 classes by social work PhD students. Inferential tests found no statistically significant differences in the global course evaluations earned by regular faculty or adjuncts. However, there were statistically significant differences in the course evaluations earned by regular faculty and doctoral students, favoring the former, but the effect size was small and of little practical import. In general, the authors found no strong evidence that adjuncts or doctoral students provided less positively evaluated teaching than did regular faculty. The authors' results are limited to one university setting but their research design can be readily adopted by other programs, given the widespread use of quantified student-completed course evaluations generally maintained on university databases. More serious attention needs to be given to determining whether the course evaluations commonly used by universities are truly valid.     

Teaching Holistically to Achieve Deep Learning

Abstract

The article examines students' perceptions of student evaluations of teaching and compares them to faculty perceptions on several dimensions. Findings indicate students were much less likely to agree that SET encourage faculty to grade more leniently, that they have an influence on a faculty member's career, or that they lead to changes in courses and/or teaching styles. Faculty members believed that students rate easy, entertaining instructors more highly. Includes suggestions for change and future research directions.     

传统高校教师眼中的网络教育:机遇与挑战

本研究旨在了解当前传统高校教师眼中网络教育的机遇与挑战问题。结果表明,传统高校教师对网络教育可能带来的一些机遇表示了积极认同的态度,对所列举的三十项影响网络教育发展的挑战因素,教师们的认同程度有轻有重。基于结果,本研究提出今后中国网络教育建设过程中战略认识、激励与培训以及系统研究的重要性。     

“Mentoring is Sharing the Excitement of Discovery”: Faculty Perceptions of Undergraduate Research Mentoring

Although an increasing number of studies have examined students’ participation in undergraduate research (UR), little is known about faculty perceptions of mentoring in this context. The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate four aspects of mentoring UR, including how faculty define high-quality UR mentoring and operationalize it in practice; what the perceived benefits and challenges of UR participation are for mentors and students; how mentoring relates to faculty perceptions of their other roles (teachers, advisors, and scholars); and how participation in various communities of practice influences UR mentoring. Sixty faculty respondents at a private, midsized comprehensive institution completed an online survey. In a series of qualitative analyses, responses to open-ended questions were coded as instrumental, psychosocial, or blended. Analyses revealed that faculty perceptions of UR mentoring were impacted by faculty approach to UR mentoring and faculty rank. These findings may be helpful in the development of UR programs and faculty support programming.     

Trainee Competence in Master's‐Level Counseling Programs: A Comparison of Counselor Educators' and Students' Views

Forty‐five counselor educators and 62 master's‐level counseling students were surveyed to compare faculty members' perceptions of trainee competence with students' own views. As anticipated, students reported higher deficiency rates than did their faculty. Combined with the intervention rates reported by corresponding faculty, students' reports suggested that as many as 21% of their peers may be professionally deficient and that the majority of these may progress through their training without remediation. Together with students' anticipated reactions to their own identification for remediation or dismissal, these findings underscore the importance of implementing effective procedures for reviewing the professional fitness of counselors‐in‐training.     

A Technique for the Measurement of Social Adjustment

The importance of students' sense of school belonging for many adaptive outcomes is becoming well established; however, few researchers have focused on college-aged populations. In this study, the authors examined associations between undergraduate students' sense of class belonging and their academic motivation in that class, their sense of class belonging and perceptions of their instructors' characteristics, and their class and campus-level sense of belonging. They distributed questionnaires to students at a southeastern university; freshmen (N = 238) completed the questionnaire. The authors found associations between (a) students' sense of class belonging and their academic self-efficacy, intrinsic motivation, and task value; (b) students' sense of class-level belonging and their perceptions of instructors' warmth and openness, encouragement of student participation, and organization; and (c) students' sense of university-level belonging and their sense of social acceptance. The authors found smaller effects on students' sense of university-level belonging for faculty pedagogical caring and for class-level sense of belonging.     

What characterizes a productive research department?

The correlates of average departmental annual research journal publication rates of faculty were examined in three disciplines: chemistry, history, and psychology. Variables studied included factual information about each department, faculty perceptions and ratings, and graduate students' perceptions and ratings. Content included academic programs, specific policies and practices, characteristics of students, faculty, facilities, etc., as well as the quality of teaching and human relations in the departments. Although the common results indicated the importance of able faculty and students, a strong emphasis on research and the provision of time and funds for faculty to pursue research, there were discipline-specific patterns of results. In chemistry the pattern of productive departments suggested large research laboratories, in history a scholarly apprenticeship approach, and in psychology an emphasis on research over practice. Discipline specific studies may be the best approach to understanding research productivity.     

Socialization of Doctoral Students to Academic Norms

Using the framework for graduate and professional student socialization developed by Weidman, Twale, and Stein (2001), this study addresses socialization of doctoral students to the academic norms of research and scholarship. Data are presented about the perceptions doctoral students in a social science discipline (sociology) and in educational foundations at a major research university have of the scholarly and collegial climates of their departments. Data on students' social relationships with faculty and peers as well as their reported participation in scholarly activities are also reported. A multivariate analysis provides support for the framework, affirming the importance of social interaction among both students and faculty as well as collegiality among faculty for creating a supportive climate for doctoral study that also has the potential to provide a strong foundation for subsequent academic and/or research careers by stimulating students' research and scholarly productivity.     

The inclusion of learners with barriers to learning and development into ordinary school settings: a challenge for Uganda

Colleagues in developing countries are required to meet a range of challenges when implementing educationally inclusive policies and practices. In this article, Kirsten Kristensen, clinical phychologist and senior consultant in special needs education and development; Martin Omagor-Loican, commissioner for special needs education, careers guidance and counselling; and Negris Onen, principal education officer in the Ministry of Education and Sports in Uganda, describe work focused on addressing the needs of all learners, including those who experience barriers to learning and development, in ordinary, mainstream school settings. The authors draw upon a study of current attitudes, perceptions and knowledge about trends towards inclusion in Uganda. The findings indicate progress in the introduction and implementation of inclusive policies; improved professional development opportunities for staff concerned with special education at all levels; and relatively positive attitudes towards inclusion. The study also raises concerns, however, about the ways in which the education system is structured and managed in a country where class sizes are enormous and resources are few. The authors make a number of key recommendations for developing mechanisms, structures and capacity in support of inclusion at all levels and report positive and encouraging recent developments.     

Student evaluations of teaching: perceptions of faculty based on gender,position, and rank

The current study explores the feelings and thoughts that faculty have about their student evaluations of teaching (SET). To assess the perceptions of SETs, all teaching faculty in one college at a western Land Grant University were asked to complete an anonymous online survey. The survey included demographic questions (i.e. gender; rank such as assistant, associate, and full professor; and positions like non-tenure track, tenure track, and tenured) as well as questions related to faculty's feelings while reading their SETs. While minimal differences were found in responses based on rank or position, several differences were found based on faculty gender. Overall, female faculty appear to be more negatively impacted by student evaluations than male faculty. These gender differences support previous research that suggests males and females receive and react differently to personal evaluation. Resultant suggestions include modifying surveys from anonymous to confidential and offering professional development training for faculty.     

Faculty employment and R&D expenditures at Research universities

This study uses panel data to examine the relationship between faculty employment and external R&D expenditures at Research and Doctoral institutions over a 15-year period of time. On average, a 1% increase in the number of full-time faculty is associated with about 0.2% increase in total R&D expenditure. Further, a one percentage point increase in the share of full-time faculty members that are not on tenure-track lines is associated with a decrease in total external R&D expenditure by about 0.6%, suggesting that full-time faculty that are tenured or on tenure-tracks are the main category of faculty that generate external R&D funding. Further, our results suggest that an increasing usage of part-time faculty, holding constant the institution's full-time faculty size, boosts an institution's external R&D expenditures. On average, a one percentage point increase in the share of part-time faculty members is associated with a 0.44% increase in the total external R&D expenditures. Increases in graduate student enrollments are associated with increases in external R&D expenditures. Finally, an institution's external R&D expenditures are significantly influenced by both the amount of its own institutionally financed research expenditures and the level of federal funding for research.     

Professional development schools: Cataylsts for teacher and school change

Drawing on data from questionnaires and 49 interviews with teachers and principals, the impact of involvement in Professional Development Schools on teacher professional growth and school change at seven Professional Development School sites is explored through a cross-case analysis. Each of the seven sites, four elementary and three secondary, served five or more years as a PDS site. Program results were mixed, underscoring the importance of a range of context variables to program success, including school district support, principal, staff and University faculty stability, student body composition, school and faculty size, as well as the nature of teachers' program involvement. Implications for PDS program development and research are discussed and a range of policy issues explored, including those associated with tensions between university faculty roles and PDS responsibilities.     

Exploring Community College Faculty Perceptions of Student Outcomes: Findings of a Pilot Study

This study explored the paradigmatic differences in perceptions of community college faculty employed at select Virginia and West Virginia community colleges collected via a web-based survey. The study is framed within the faculty self-classification along the “hard” and “social/behavior” science paradigm continuum. Given the paradigmatic continuum, faculty perceptions' of student outcomes were examined. Faculty respondents consistently reported the importance of intellectual growth; however, differences in relative importance of outcomes tied to emotional, cultural, and social growth exist. The potential implications of these perceptions on student experiences and outcomes are considered.     

Disciplinary Differences and the Integration of Technology into Teaching

ABSTRACT

The preparation of teachers involves academics from across the disciplinary spectrum but research on the differences between academic disciplines has revealed that a faculty member's discipline is a major factor in shaping the several aspects of course planning and teaching. The purpose of this paper is to present a model for investigating disciplinary differences as they may relate to teaching with technology, thereby enabling more effective integration of technology into the curriculum. Components of the model include: the structure and ethos of the discipline; preparation for, and experience as, a teacher; faculty assumptions about students; faculty beliefs and perceptions about technology; and the environmental context.     

‘My colleagues wear blinkers . . . If they were trained,they would understand better’. Reflections on teacher education on inclusion in Cyprus

This paper discusses fundamental theoretical issues in relation to education on inclusion. These issues inform core decisions about initial teacher education courses and in‐service teacher‐training programmes on inclusion. International and local discussions and research in this area formed the background for the design and implementation of a 2‐year funded research project whose aim was to record teachers' knowledge, attitudes and skills in relation to inclusion before developing an in‐service training programme that suited their profiles. The paper focuses on Greek‐Cypriot teachers' perceptions of their initial and in‐service teacher education on inclusion in Cyprus, as revealed by survey and interview findings. The findings are discussed with reference to relevant literature from Cyprus and other countries in an attempt to draw connections between teacher education, local culture and international practice. The paper concludes with a discussion of the argument that in‐service training programmes on inclusion are of central importance, not only for Cyprus but also for other countries. We argue that teachers' initial education does not guarantee a shared understanding of inclusive education; therefore, in‐service teacher‐training programmes need to be carefully planned and delivered to all schoolteachers to address both theoretical and practical aspects of inclusive education effectively.     

COMMUNITY SERVICES: COMMUNITY COLLEGE FACULTY PERCEPTIONS AND PARTICIPATION

This study determined full‐time faculty members’ perceptions of and involvement in community services at community colleges in Ohio. A total of 249 full‐time faculty responded to the survey instrument representing 83.0% of the total sample. Data were analyzed by either the t test or the one‐way analysis of variance and Scheffe's post hoc analysis.

Results showed that involvement in planning and teaching within community services seem to be a key factor relative to how full‐time faculty perceive community services activities. Moreover, certain personal and professional characteristics of full‐time faculty members seem to influence their attitudes toward and their involvement in community services.